daffodil

What a lovely name for a flower, eh? It reminds you of Daffy Duck and Windmills put together in a violent, and yet funny cartoonish way.

When I was a kid, we called them buttercups. It took me a long time to unlearn that. I now know that buttercups are those little flowers that you trick someone into smelling so that they get yellow stuff on their nose.

Daffodils are much more majestic. I have several in bloom now in different parts of the yard. They seem to come in three varieties around here: The big ass yellow ones. The small yellow ones. And the almost white ones with a hint of yellow on the inside part of the flower.

Narcissus is the botanical name for daffodils, and if you hear someone speaking of a narcissus, they're speaking of daffodils. Unless they're speaking of their last girlfriend who spent a lot of face time in the mirror.

Daffodils that I have known seem to multiply underground, by way of bulb division. This is called asexual cloning, and exact copies of the flower will result. This is what's going to happen to us, you know? And I'll bet you we won't take it as calmly as the little yellow flowers have done (so far).

They can also reproduce sexually (from seed) where new, different flowers will result. But I think you've got to have a whole bunch of them in a field somewhere for this to actually happen. I don't think I've ever seen it. And I've been watching closely. (I have a lot of free time.)